Not Anymore
by myrhymesarepurer
Summary: Brotherhood, Post-Promised Day / General Mustang and his Captain return to Ishval. Riza stays awake listening, waiting for his inevitable nightmare. It arrives, and she hesitates. Somehow and somewhat afraid. / "Please wake up." / "We're murderers, Riza."


_Leave a "_ _ **Quiet Me**_ _" in my ask, and I'll write a drabble about one character trying to calm another down._ This one comes from princ3ssf33t 's request on tumblr. I was worried about being typical. There's a lot of these types of fics bc I think it would really happen between them. But, I hope this one does it well. I really liked it in the end. Cute, angsty, and _real_ I hope.

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He was more shouting than screaming. And, in the bare barracks  
of the new Headquarters in Ishval, General Roy Mustang's voice  
shot down the hallways, echoed off the walls.

Strong,  
startling,  
blood curdling really.

It was a very good thing they were alone.

He didn't shout any word in particular.  
It was simply a burst of energy, terror,  
grief.

The team that had arrived with the General and the Captain  
that morning, they all waited for the second scream.

When it came, and the third,  
and the fourth,  
the fifth.

They all appeared in the hallway.  
They all looked to Riza.

She pulled out Roy's extra key out of her front pocket,  
and outstretched her arm. "Havoc, take this.  
Go in there and wake the General up."

Silence.

"Havoc," she said again,  
demanding, ordering.

He and Breda stared at her,  
dazed. Dumfounded.

This was a job for her.

And, Hawkeye was hesitant,  
somewhat and somehow afraid.

"I'm sorry, Riza," Havoc admitted meekly,  
"You _know_ I won't nearly be as effective."

Perhaps Riza knew it was so.  
They all knew it was so.

But, she didn't want to go in.

The second they stepped off the train  
the General was different.

Just entirely off.

Havoc, Breda.  
They noticed a slight shift of equilibrium.

The change in location place, maybe.  
The weight of a new mission, perhaps.

The Grand Reconstruction of Ishval.

It was heavy.  
It was a big task.

They shrugged it off as a long day,  
a tremendous amount of pressure,  
and called it a night.

But, Riza could see it in Roy's eyes.  
They took the military shuttle,  
he stared out the window.

Roy wasn't looking at a land rebuilding, rising anew.  
He saw himself. He saw the fire.

The scaffoldings were invisible,  
the new brick was ash.

He heard the snap of his fingers,  
felt the heat, smelled burning, bubbling flesh.

And, Riza knew this was coming.  
She had stayed awake.

She had been listening for its beginning, the night terror,  
so frequent in the past. Now that it had come,  
she didn't want to touch it.

She would be a trigger.

Riza would only bring more remorse,  
more severe and searing pain.

For he had shouldered her draft into the war,  
as they plucked her from the academy.

He had shouldered her slaughters  
as much as he did his own.

And, now they were once more amongst the sand,  
and the sun and the dry and the heat.

Her hair was short again.

She was another picture of his past.  
Riza, for once, couldn't help him.

"Captain," Breda snapped her out of it.

She was staring at his door.  
She was stiff, frozen,  
weak.

"If it's about Ishval," he said softly, honestly,  
"You're the only one who can fix it."

Riza held the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes.  
Roy's bed raked across the floor under his thrashing,  
the vibrations shot through the hall.

"Stop!" Roy shouted, a growl,  
desperate, "STOP."

Exactly what he was dreaming about,  
picturing, reliving, begging to cease,

Riza couldn't imagine.

But, his voice made her stomach turn to sour milk,  
she had to get in there. She had to help him.

Terrified or no.

"Both of you. Back to bed."

"Yes, Sir," they retreated  
obediently, silently.

Riza struggled with the lock,  
swung open the door,

to find Roy kicking,  
punching, jolting,  
convulsing.

"General."

Riza first held him down,  
pinned his shoulders,

dodged his swings.  
prayed he would stop.

"Please wake up, _please_ wake up."

When Roy persisted,  
she went for his arms.

She lowered them to the sheets,  
she brushed them with her thumbs.

Riza bit her lip so hard it bled.  
She whispered, "Please wake up, Roy."

The General stilled,  
not immediately so.

It must have been ten minutes.  
Riza's eyes closed, muttering  
pleading, desperate,

while Roy hyperventilated,  
and muttered apologies.  
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Stop," she begged, " _General_."

"I'm sorry, Riza," he mumbled,  
drifting off, collapsing all at once.

Riza stared at Roy,  
held his arms.

She put his forehead on hers,  
and sighed rigidly,  
suffocated.

She had caused this.  
Just as she had feared.

Roy was covered with sweat. Riza grabbed  
and soaked a washcloth from his bathroom.

She wiped gently, his cheeks, his lips,  
and rested the cloth on his forehead.

He still wasn't awake.

Her next move wasn't a conscious decision  
she didn't think.

The consequences were irrelevant,  
the regulations, the decency of the choice.

Riza just thought it right to lift the covers,  
and slip into bed right next to her General,  
her closest confidant,  
her best friend.

"General Mustang," she lifted up on her elbow.  
Her fingers gravitated toward his hair.

She swept bothersome strands out of the way,  
grazed the hair on the side, next to his ear.

"General," she sighed.  
 _Roy_ , she thought, "It's me."

Riza wanted him to wake,  
to talk to him, to ask permission  
to stay with him for the night.

Somehow, in a lighthearted way,  
she knew he certainly wouldn't mind.

But, in the greatest honestly,  
if she went to sleep alone,

if she had fallen asleep,  
if she hadn't watched and waiting,

she would thrash and scream just the same,  
with a paralyzing nightmare of her own.

"The war is over,"  
she whispered to him,  
to herself.

"It's over," she said,

even as he still sweated under an invisible sun,  
scorched in the heat of an unquenchable fire.

She held his arm,  
and breathed steadily.

Soon he did the same,  
and, in time, he did wake up.

Riza had fallen asleep finally,  
curled at his side, holding tight

Roy felt her instantly,  
responded instantly.

"I brought you back to this place."

Roy's voice was low and deep,  
full of hate and defeat all at once.

Ishval.

After all he'd done to her,  
after all the hell he led her through,

he put her on a train, he dragged her back to the desert,  
and forced her to fix what he had destroyed,  
smother the fire he started.

"I'm right where I want to be."

Riza answered as if she was always awake,  
listening, keeping guard, keeping him safe.

She had someone to protect.

 _I brought you back to this place._

But, she had packed her bags herself.  
She had reported for duty.

Long ago she had promised to follow Roy Mustang,  
and she would follow him even back to the desert of their past.

He could have all the nightmares,  
all the regret, all the self-hatred in the world

She would not leave.

"We're murderers, Riza," he pleaded her to blame him  
for something,  
anything.

He was a murderer.  
He made her a murderer.

 _We're murderers._

"Not this time," Riza answered strongly.

Roy finally opened his eyes. The light in the hallway spread  
underneath the door, and he was able to see her eyes lock with his.

She wasn't sure when the tears started.  
But, they were there.

She didn't sob.  
She barely cried.

But, Roy brushed two, three, four  
drops off her cheek then inched closer.

Riza breathed in the familiar scent of Roy Mustang,  
already soaked into the sheets and the pillows.

They had been together since before Ishvalan blood  
coated their hands, plagued their dreams.

They'd be together, here and now,  
to finally wash them clean,  
a pipe dream or no.

They'd be together until the end.  
Roy gave her the faintest smile.

Riza closed her eyes and moved into him.

Roy pulled the blankets tight around them,  
and buried his nose in her hair.

"Not anymore," she said.

He nodded as much as he could,  
believed as much as he could,  
just for the night.

"Not anymore."

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My sweet loves. How they suffer. If you liked this, request your own via my tumblr, myrhymesarepurer.  
I love these prompts. In the meantime, let me know what you think about this one! reviews reviews **i crave attention.**


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